Oldham MP Debbie Abrahams has launched a stinging attack on Iain Duncan Smith, calling for him to resign in the wake of his department admitting fabricating quotes for a leaflet.

Ms Abrahams, who is a member of the work and pensions select committee, said Mr Duncan Smith was a ‘disgrace’ following revelations that the Department for Work and Pensions created a leaflet about sanctions containing made-up quotes attributed to non-existent benefit claimants.

Early this year, she instigated an inquiry into the use of sanctions by the work and pensions committee.

She said: “After being caught out so publicly it must be impossible for Iain Duncan Smith to continue as work and pensions secretary and he should do the honourable thing and resign.

“This is yet another example of not only his incompetence, but what can only be described as very shady and unscrupulous behaviour not befitting a Member of Parliament let alone a Secretary of State leading a Government Department.

“He is a disgrace and should do the honourable thing and resign.”

The DWP was this week forced to admit it used stock images of people and made-up quotes from claimants to promote controversial welfare sanctions.

The leaflet, which has since been withdrawn and amended, featured ‘stories’ from various people recounting how having things like benefits cut helped them in the long run.

One, from someone called Sara, said a cut to benefits had been the encouragement she needed to re-do her CV.

The DWP says the stories were ‘for illustrative purposes only’.

The newly-published leaflet no longer carries pictures of the people and adds a disclaimer that the stories are used to ‘show how sanctions work in practice’.

But Ms Abrahams said: “When his own department have to resort to this sort of tactic, in a desperate attempt to make it appear as though the system is working, no-one can be left believing that his draconian social security sanctions regime is fit for purpose.

“Only Mr Duncan Smith seems to believe that unfair and inappropriate use of sanctions on vulnerable social security claimants is acceptable. And now he’s shown that he thinks it’s acceptable for his department to produce literature that is fabricated in a desperate attempt to make people believe his sanctions regime is working fairly.

“It beggars belief that David Cameron can, in the light of this embarrassing debacle, continue to back Mr Duncan Smith as a credible work and pensions secretary when he has presided over such a catalogue of errors.”

One really has to ask what hold IDS has over Cameron and others in the Tory Party hierarchy that makes him able to stay in the job - even to the extent of refusing to be moved to another department when asked (not instructed or ordered?) to by his alleged leader as happened more than once during the course of the last parliament.

They have the cheek to call the poor, sick and disabled. scum and scroungers. He should be in prison, if it was any of one of the above we would have the book thrown at us. It's is shocking that IDS is not accountable for his own actions.

Just over a year ago, I was sanctioned whilst on ESA. I was really ill, and by myself. I had no money for 7 weeks. I was raiding supermarket skips to feed myself. This was worse that a JSA sanction, because they refused to help me, even when I was sobbing down the phone in desperation for help. I repeated to them many times that I was a type 1 diabetic, but this fell on deaf ears. Thank you, IDS, for nearly managing to kill me.

He is simply not fit to do his job he lied about everything about himself to get into polictics he as made terrible decisions and have caused so many lost lives, he must be stopped before more sick and disabled victims are made to suffer from this lunatic!